A coroner has said that the cause of death of a Nottinghamshire man can’t be confirmed after he fell between the fences of gardens backing onto each other – because his body was too decomposed and had a “maggot infestation”.
Lee Bowman was missing for two months while police confirmed he was police-find-body-search-missing-6442084″“alive and well” to NottinghamshireLive after several false sightings – but there has since been an admission that he could have died at any stage during that time.
The police investigation caused the 44-year-old’s daughter, Corrina, to suffer serious ill mental health after they had reportedly assumed Lee was “missing because he didn’t want to be found and was drunk somewhere”.
Mr Bowman’s family had repeatedly said it was out of character for him to not contact them.
Following an inquest, the 23-year-old told BBC News: “I’m grateful for how the court saw my dad for a human and not his addictions and troubles”, adding she is glad her father won’t have “died for nothing” since “things are having to change” now.
She added: “The pathologist couldn’t guarantee he died that night. What if someone had gone out to look for him? Would he have been alive? Would we have been able to save him?”, before adding: “I hope he passed away really quickly and wasn’t trapped for days”.
Mr Bowman had a history of anxiety disorder, depressive disorder and substance abuse, and was an alcoholic at the time of his death, as well as having liver cirrhosis.
Bowman, who had been living in a homeless shelter in Newark at the time, went missing after visiting his girlfriend in South Yorkshire.
His brother reported him missing to police, who treated the case initially as a “deliberate absence”, rather than a missing person enquiry, but changed